The Books
Assata: An Autobiography
Assata Shakur
Assata Shakur has lived on the FBI’s most wanted list since the 1979, but her autobiography highlights the complicated nature of race in America. Layered with Shakur’s own poetry, this controversial autobiography grips readers subtly, and haunts them permanently.
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The Country Under My Skin
Gioconda Belli
Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli never felt completely satisfied confined to domestic life. Juxtaposing the Nicaraguan mountainside with womanhood, Belli’s second book shares a lyrical tale of her younger self, finally satiated by love and her country during war.
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A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
A National Book Award finalist, this book follows four New York City friends as they age, struggle and grow. Devastating and beautiful, Yanagihara illustrates the healing power of love, and the unbreakable bonds of true friendship.
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Wolf in White Van
John Darnielle
In a leap from lyrics to novels, Darnielle captures a young man’s tragedy and a game that escalates beyond his control. A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award nominee, this moving story takes readers along for the ride.
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The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander
In a moment where race is at the forefront of social and political consciousness, Michelle Alexander’s 2010 award-winning historical analysis of racism – social, political, and institutional – forces us to question everything we thought we knew about race in America.
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The Flick
Annie Baker
Winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The Flick follows three hardworking employees cleaning a run-down movie theater after-hours. Combining human interest and the power of film, readers will develop love for both the characters and the theater.
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Cherry
Mary Karr
A New York Times bestseller, Cherry exemplifies Mary Karr’s title: master of memoir. Readers run by Karr’s side as she eloquently paints an image every person can relate to: the thrilling peaks and angsty valleys of adolescence.
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
A National Bestseller, In Cold Blood pieces together the events, aftermath, and investigation of the brutal 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Capote’s groundbreaking narrative non-fiction seizes public fascination with violent crime and cultivates unexpected empathy.
The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings
Richard Brautigan
Before his reputation bloomed as a hippie artist, Brautigan gifted a number of his earliest works to the mother of his first girlfriend. Innocent and dreamy, this collection connects readers to the roots of one of America’s greatest counterculture poets.
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck is a Nobel laureate, and East of Eden, his magnum opus, tracks the intertwined fates of two families living in the California Salinas Valley. Steinbeck’s deeply moving and difficult biblical parallel will leave readers irrevocably affected.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Friere
Written by renowned educator and philosopher, Paulo Friere, this foundational text explores power relationships between colonizer/colonized and teacher/student. Bursting with insight and wisdom, this book challenges perceptions of students and subjugated groups, and has sold over one million copies worldwide.
The Kingkiller Chronicle
Patrick Rothfuss
The bestselling first and second installments of this epic fantasy have readers impatiently awaiting book three. The journey of Kvothe, retold in his own words, beautifully captures sorrow, love, survival – aka, the stuff of legends.
